Coordinate Across Stakeholders
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This recommendation proposes the idea of building processes that encourage coordination and implementation of plans and ideas of differing scales for the growth of the Movement. It is supported by the recommendations: ‘Plan Infrastructure Scalability’, ‘Improve User Experience’, ‘Provide for Safety and Security’, ‘Ensure Equity in Decision-Making’, and ‘Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt’.

Intro section

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These pages describe a major discussion process currently taking place at the website for Wikimedia.

If you wish to add comments to the main discussions for this process at that website, here is the link where you can do so:


What

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In order to “become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge,” as a Movement, we must enable coordination among all the various stakeholders to ensure our alignment and to achieve our goals. Coordination is the essential backbone functioning for the Movement we envision.

We must develop a practice of cooperation and collaboration among the different stakeholders to advance towards more equitable decision-making. Coordination must be facilitated by Movement structures, as well as technological solutions and platforms that take into account the different participants’ needs in context and the internal knowledge of the Movement.

The need for coordination was clearly evident during community conversations[1], as often there is a lack of harmony between the volunteer communities and other parts of the Movement.[2] A lack of clarity about the roles of the various stakeholders, ineffective communication channels,[3] and differing prioritization systems have created points of conflict, perceptions that decision-making has occurred without consultation, and lack of unity of purpose.[4] To ensure equity and access, we need to coordinate among stakeholders to address power imbalances that may facilitate elitism with little to no accountability among/to different Movement participants. We need to be accountable to each other and work together to reach our strategic goals.[5]

Distributed leadership and power structures are key areas for developing and promoting equity in the Movement.[6] This distributed structure comes with an increased need for effective coordination among the various players, to ensure that problems and challenges are solved inclusively and transparently, rather than simply shifted from one area to another.[7] We must have processes and procedures that clearly define our relationships, along with their overlaps, and provide for coordination with efficient communication channels across all levels, particularly in facilitating our response to urgent threats or opportunities.[8]

While coordination is necessary for decision-making, it is also essential for collecting and producing content in each local version of a project and globally. The need for having better mechanisms to put people in touch with similar topical interests is evident at all levels in the Movement and also with external stakeholders, such as partners. This core need will become more relevant as the Movement grows larger and more diverse, and finding solutions to it can have multiplicative effects in the quantity and quality of free knowledge we can create.

Coordination can take place between Movement stakeholders, extending to include external partners, who share our goals in the open knowledge Movement.[9] To foster collaboration, we recommend an approach based on several actions to establish a communicative ecosystem: an adequate organizational structure, usable networking and technical solutions/platforms to address stakeholders’ communicative needs, and collaboration with the external knowledge ecosystem.

We must prioritize communication, information exchange, and working together [10] and adopt an organizational structure that has a collaboration function built-in. The structure needs to provide, at all levels, for contextualized thematic/regional discussion and networking, support, planning, research, monitoring, advocacy, capacity building, learning, mentoring, etc. to ensure that our mission/vision remains cohesive.[11] Further structural solutions to align and coordinate the distributed Movement include a Movement Charter and a global Governance Body, which would take on global coordinating efforts that cannot be tackled by emergent regional structures, for example helping set an overarching strategy, as they might have rivaling interests.[12]

We must analyze whether emergent support structures / regional hubs should form a part of the Movement structures to serve as a dispatch and coordination centers for supporting Movement-wide, regional, or thematic focuses and foster better communication and collaboration. Among the thematic units proposed are support structures for advocacy, capacity building, community health, and technology, to ensure that our systems remain current, focus on future development, continuously evaluate requirements and needs in our dynamic environment, and allow our people and technology to be productive assets and relevant in a broad range of contexts.[13]

Open and transparent software projects and functionality proposal processes which allow all stakeholders in the Movement to put forth ideas and a “Technology Council” which coordinates requirements for introducing new functionalities must be prioritized,[14] as should enhancements to our systems to manage our internal knowledge. Improved communication systems to facilitate the exchange of information and collaboration among/by internal and external partners are crucial to remaining efficient, relevant, and sustainable.[15] Finally, we propose collaboration with the external knowledge ecosystem in developing solutions and sharing expertise in both areas where we share common goals and areas which we may need to use but which will not be developed in our Movement.[16]

Expected outcomes

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  • Create living, governance documents defining clear responsibilities and expected capabilities that reflect our common shared values, principles, and accountability to each other and facilitate growth, inclusiveness, and diversity.[17]
  • Develop a collaboration function that is built-in throughout all Movement organizational structures, making them capable of managing joint decision-making.
  • Develop emergent support structures, when relevant, as a part of the Movement structures to coordinate support of Movement-wide, regional, or thematic focuses and foster communication and collaboration so our people and technology can be productive assets, relevant in a broad range of contexts, and be sustained.[18]
  • Design a “Technology Council” which coordinates the requirements for introducing new functionalities in software and invites all stakeholders in the Movement to put forth ideas for new features in an open and transparent software functionalities and projects proposal process.[19]
  • Enhance communication capacities to enable better management of knowledge, exchange of information, support, and collaboration amongst internal and external partners.[20]

References

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  1. ^ “There is a lack of coordination of the WMF with its affiliates and communities”, Hispanophone Community, Iberocoop Telegram Channel, March-April 2019.
  2. ^ “There should be more communication and clarification from the "offline world" (especially WMF) towards online editors so that they understand their role and place in this model”, Hindi Wikimedia Community, March-April 2019.
  3. ^ Community Survey Analysis: Product & Technology, Q1, “better communication”.
    Roles & Responsibilities, Q2, “better communication”.
    Capacity Building, Q1, “Online and offline communication”.
  4. ^ Roles & Responsibilities R2&3: Decentralisation and self-management, Product & Technology R3: Open Product Proposal Process, Advocacy R1: Transparency, Advocacy R6: Common positioning
  5. ^ Partnerships R6: Partnerships as part of a Distributed Vision, Partnerships R7: Partnerships as a shared and equitable resource and activity
  6. ^ Product & Technology R1: Evaluate and Decentralize Technology Components, Product & Technology R2: Support Community Decision-making
  7. ^ Resource Allocation RD: Distribute existing structures, Advocacy R3: Global conversation, Advocacy R7: Partnerships
  8. ^ Diversity R4: Planned community diversification, Community Health R2: Redefining power structures to better serve the communities, Interviews Insights Summary, Community Health R8: Privacy and security for everyone, Advocacy R10: Protection of Advocates
  9. ^ Partnerships R2: Wikimedia as steward of the Free Knowledge Ecosystem, Community Health R6: Newcomers are a key indicator to the success of the Movement
  10. ^ Partnerships R3: Shared ecosystem of services and tools for content partnerships
  11. ^ Resource Allocation RE: Build Thematic hubs, Advocacy R5: Advocacy Hub, Capacity Building R10: Independently governed Capacity Building ‘Unit’, Community Health R10: Network to continually support community health, Product & Technology R3: Open Product Proposal Process, Product & Technology R4: Deployment Council, Product & Technology R10: Developing an Evolving Technology Vision and Strategy
  12. ^ Roles and Responsibilities: Scenario (Hybrid)
  13. ^ Resource Allocation RE: Build Thematic hubs, Advocacy R5: Advocacy Hub, Capacity Building R10: Independently governed Capacity Building ‘Unit’, Community Health R10: Network to continually support community health, Product & Technology R3: Open Product Proposal Process, Product & Technology R4: Deployment Council, Product & Technology R10: Developing an Evolving Technology Vision and Strategy, [[AB Cycle 2 Insights summary Movement Strategy Summary and Analysis, New Voices Synthesis report (July 2017): Future information technology could radically change how knowledge is created, processed and shared
  14. ^ Product & Technology R1: Evaluate and Decentralize Technology Components, Product & Technology R4: Deployment Council
  15. ^ Product & Technology R2: Support Community Decision-making, Partnerships R7: Partnerships as a shared and equitable resource and activity
  16. ^ Product & Technology R7: Realize the Potential of the Third-Party Ecosystem
  17. ^ Advocacy R1: Transparency, Advocacy R6: Common positioning, Product & Technology R1: Evaluate and Decentralize Technology Components
  18. ^ Resource Allocation RE: Build Thematic hubs, Advocacy R5: Advocacy Hub, Capacity Building R10: Independently governed Capacity Building ‘Unit’, Community Health R10: Network to continually support community health, Product & Technology R3: Open Product Proposal Process, Product & Technology R4: Deployment Council, Product & Technology R10: Developing an Evolving Technology Vision and Strategy
  19. ^ Product & Technology R3: Open Product Proposal Process, Product & Technology R4: Deployment Council
  20. ^ Product & Technology R2: Support Community Decision-making, Partnerships R7: Partnerships as a shared and equitable resource and activity